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I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Helpful Thoughts 



FOR 



Young Men. 



THREE DISCOURSES 



BY 

T^ d: woolsey, d. d., ll. d., 

LATE PRESIDENT OF YALE COLLEGE. 



7' / ? Ti^6 S- 



BOSTON ; 
PUBLISHED BY D. LOTHROP & CO. 

DOVER, N. H. : G. T. DAY & CO. 
1874. 



.h/szi 




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, 

By D. LOTHROP & CO., 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



ROCKTVELT. & Chukchili., Printers. 



Strength to Do All Things. 



'' I can do all things through Jesus Christ which strength- 
eneth me." — Philippians iv. 13. 

The question, what is practicable, especially 
what each individual can do in the world, is one 
of very great importance. At no time is such an 
inquiry of more importance than when a young 
man, being emancipated in a great measure from 
the control of others, is now thrown upon his own 
resources, for at this time a wrong estimate of what 
is practicable for him may lead him into great mis- 
tabes. He may either overrate his powers and the 
facility with which he can overcome obstacles, and 
so attempt things beyond his reach, or he may un- 
derrate his powers and magnify the difficulties he 
is appointed to encounter, and so desert his proper 
post in the world. Nor is the question, so im- 
portant at first, answered once for all, but it comes 
back continually into the mind through life. Every 
one has to ask, " Am I equal to this or that under- 
taking ? " " Is the risk too great to be run ? " '* Is 
the enterprise practicable for any one ? " " Are my 



HELPFU]^ THOUGHTS. 

powers what they have been ? '^ These and ques- 
tions of similar import, need to be answered as long 
as a man lives ; and to one who wants to make the 
most of himself and of life, they are of very great 
interest. 

The apostle Paul lets us know, in the text, how 
he would answer this question. ''I can do all 
things through Christ which strengtheneth me." 
By the words all things he evidently did not intend 
all things conceivable^ but all things to which he might 
he called in the alternations of life. His thought 
turns more particularly towards things to be en- 
dured or met with : " I know," saj^s he, " both how- 
to be abased and 1 know how to abound ; every- 
where, and in all things I am instructed both to be 
full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer 
need; I can do all things'' — literally I have 
strength for everything — "through (or in) Christ, 
because he gives me power.'* It is a divine gift 
surely to learn how to endure^ but he did not mean 
to confine his remark to this ; his active powers also, 
his faculty of undertaking and of accom2)lishing 
were enlarged, — both as his consciousness and his 
judgment founded on experience told him, — by 
strength drawn from Christ. He means to say, 
without question, not merely that faith in Christ as 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

a strengthener made him feel equal to every call of 
duty, but also that Christ actually strengthened 
him. Both the subjective and the objective strength 
were supplied f he did not find his power of action 
increased by a faith in an unreal object, nor did a 
real object strengthen him otherwise than through 
his own soul. Christ's strength and his activity 
went together. 

The passage calls us to consider the truth that 
the working powers of a Christian man are en- 
larged by strength drawn from Christ ; or — to put 
the same truth into another shape, the question 
what is practicable in this world will be decided 
differently, in a multitude of cases, by a man of 
the world and a man of faith. Only then, do we 
attain to a true measure of what we can do, and 
have all the impulses of action within our reach, 
when we take into view both our native power an^ 
the strength we can obtain from Christ. 

We admit, however, at the outset, that there are 
many situations and performances in life to which 
man is equal by his own unaided strength. There 
are certain things which are impracticable, and cer- 
tain others which can be done by the ordinary 
powers of man. Between these boundaries there 
lies a region where risks are incurred, and judg- 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

ment of men and of events is a great element of 
success, where the shrewd calculator is likely to 
reach a higher point than a Christian. The native 
qualities which are fitted to encounter these risks 
of life, are sharpened by expejience into great 
adroitness and practical wisdom. It does not seem 
to require any help from Christ to instruct the 
merchant when to furl his sails and when to spread 
them to the breeze, or the politician whom to put 
forward as the candidate of his party, or what 
measures to urge in order to propitiate or deceive 
the people. Nor do I suppose that Paul supposed 
that Christ ever promised strength to His followers 
in such a sense that they might be sure of being 
guided into earthly prosperity. If He had prom- 
ised it, He would have subverted the principles of 
His own Kingdom, which is to be established in 
human hearts by disaster and suffering, as much, 
to say the least, as by their contraries. And if any 
of Christ's followers expect to be secured from 
temporal ill, or assured of prosperity, except so far 
as moderation of desires, steadiness of efforts, a 
right direction of the powers which are results of 
Christian principles, bring this about, they need to 
be made wiser by disappointment. 

So far, then, the practical man of the worldly 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

sort seems to have the advantage of all other 
men, — of the visionary and of the Christian, whom 
he may regard as a visionary. He concentrates his 
efforts, he measures with accuracy the means within 
his reach, he acquires such practical skill by ex- 
perience, that as long as he confines himself within 
his sphere, he may justly feel that he needs no 
strength. He admits that God may do him great 
evil by storm, or sickness, or the knavery of others, 
or wide-sweeping political convulsions, but if God 
will only leave him alone to take his o«ivn path and 
use his own means to advantage, he is confident of 
success. And so he may very naturally fall into 
that elation of mind which we call purse-pride, 
where a man has made his own money, and which 
appears very often in other shapes, when other 
worldly projects have been crowned with unusual 
success. 

But there are departments of life, and those too, 
of vast bearing on the cultivation of character and 
on our final destiny, into which the calculations of 
these practical, self-relying men do not reach ; where 
even the visionary, who judges under the sway of 
hope and imagination, stands on as good ground as 
he, and where he who secures for himself the strength 
of Christ has the advantao^e of both. There is 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

nothing to binder the Christian from answering 
wisely the question " What can be done " in all the 
lower departments of life ; and when action in the 
higher is demanded, he alone can see his way 
clearly, because he has a strength of vision which 
is divinely imparted. He, then, is the truly prac- 
tical man in regard to the higher things of life ; he 
decides what is practicable — especially what is 
practicable for himself by sounder rules than those 
which give the merchant his money, or the politi- 
cian his pladfe. 

I. And here we remark in the first place that 
Christian principle enables us to control every bias to 
which our own state of mind subjects us. In all the 
great problems of life, the decision of which rests 
at last with ourselves, these biases more or less 
affect our judgments. The question " What we 
ought to do," is involved in the question "What 
we can do," and this is answered, it may be, 
under a false view of our powers. So duty 
itself is neglected; perhaps our very life-work, 
that toil in which we could gather the most fruit 
for this and the next world, is set aside on some 
vain plea. 

Now Christ gives us strength, if we wish it, to 
overcome these subjective influences which can 



STRENGTH TO -DO ALL THINGS. 

lead us into false courses. Take the case of timid- 
ity for an example. There are gifted men who 
shrink from great responsibilities as being more 
than they can bear, and this is so amiable a weak- 
ness that they and others see no great harm in it, 
whereas it may lead to the most positive of sins, to 
a refusal to fill a place into which providence 
almost thrusts them. There was a man once, of 
the highest powers, and of a very noble character, 
for whom God had designed a place of vast im- 
portance in the world's history. But he shrunk 
back from the mission in a sense of incompetence, 
though the voice from the bush had appointed him 
to so great a work. " O Lord," said he, " I am 
not eloquent — but I am slow of speech and of a 
slow tongue." And even after God had said, I 
will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou 
wilt say, Moses could still reply " O my Lord, send 
I pray thee by whom thou wilt send," i. e» choose 
any one but me. And so Moses, if God had left 
him to himself, might have rejected the sublimest 
offer and opportunity ever bestowed on a man, 
and . tended sheep in Midian instead of delivering 
Israel and changing the face of ages. It is proper 
that men should shrink from responsibility, it is not 
proper that they should throw themselves into 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

arduous work without weighing themselves and 
weighing the occasion; but let them take the 
strength of Christ into calculation, as a help in 
preparatory counsels and a help in duty itself, then 
will the spirit of fear pass away and they will find 
that they can do all things. 

Nor does the fear of opinion act in any other 
way upon our judgments. The appointments God 
makes for us in his providence may be set aside by 
a reference to the estimate men form of us or of 
the service ; our convictions are undermined by 
these judgments ; we dare not and so we cannot 
undertake the work. Anything difficult in which 
we have not this bugbear to encounter appears 
easier and more feasible than any thing easy where 
opposition meets us from man. But here faith can 
lift us up above the fear of man which bringeth a 
snare ; by communion with Christ we become so 
thoroughly persuaded of the goodness of the cause 
that the seeming obstacles disappear, and we say, 
" God is on our side ; what shall we fear if man be 
against us ? " 

Another subjective source of error in regard to 
what we can do is sloths or the love of ease. How 
this acts we all know, in tempting us not only to 
shrink in the outset from difficult duty, but to 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

neglect our work all along through its progress. 
The counteracting force can be found only in strong 
worldly motives on the one hand, or in the strength 
that conies from Christ on the other. But the 
range and sphere of the worldly motives is limited. 
They are shut out from the higher departments of 
life, from considerations of duty, from the work of 
improving our character and to a great extent from 
whatever good has no present and tangible results. 
Sloth, so far as it obstructs us in the higher work 
of life, is met by those convictions of the im- 
portance of unseen things, which give to all our 
efforts their right place and play, which do not de- 
press earthly energies because they fasten on some- 
thing higher, but direct and moderate all the native 
qualities by bringing them under the control of 
truth and of Christ. 

II. Thus when the subjective sources of error 
are brought under the power of superior princi- 
ples, we shall judge better what is practicable for 
us, and undertake it with more vigor and more 
hope. Another remark falls naturally into this 
place — that the practicable may involve long worh^ 
which we will incline neither to begin nor to con- 
tinue without patience^- and that such patience in 
our higher life-work is strength drawn from Christ. 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

There are many who will make short efforts 
with great ardor, but are found unequal to a steady- 
plan, which is never to end until death. These 
are the day laborers of life, — they accomplish 
nothing but as they are directed and superintended ; 
or they are the rank and file who fight through the 
battle with superhuman bravery, but are broken 
down by long marches or give way to long inaction. 
It would be easy to fulfil our work in this world, 
if it were only job work, nothing but a series of sep- 
arate tasks, which offer themselves to us of them- 
selves. Even if the work were hard, there would 
be no toil of mind with it, .no planning, no waiting, 
no discouragement, no temptation to impatience. 
We are apt not to have energy enough for that whose 
end we cannot descry, and we shrink from it ; we 
call it unattainable, especially if, like much of our 
life-work, it is to be completed by a vast number 
of successive efforts, each of which seems to ac- 
complish nothing. It is then we exaggerate the 
happiness of mere rest, we long to see the end, and 
we miscalculate risks in favor of sloth or of our 
fears. Misjudging thus the difficulties to be met 
with, and misjudging our own powers, it is not 
strange that we fail lamentably — that we become 
even wicked and slothful servants. 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

It is true that in our worldly work, where all 
goes on in due order, and faith in the future is not 
much wanted, patience is common enough. There 
are multitudes who pursue a plan of wealth, for 
instance, or of power, through a life-time, owing 
to the happy balance of their characters between 
vigorous determination, and self-denying hope. 
They may make just estimates of the probabilities 
of success, may cling to their projects through diffi- 
culties by the unassisted force of nature, which can 
do as well in the lower spheres as with special 
divine help it can in the higher. 

But here and in all our life-work he alone can 
judge correctly what is practicable for him, and 
can execute what he decrees, who has the unpre- 
tending quality of patience, and in the higher work 
of common life this belongs to all heroic men. 
Who is he that can execute a work by the highest 
art ? It is the sculptor, or painter, or poet who, in 
addition to great nativ^e endowments, plans long, 
and turns his work over a thousand times in his 
mind before expressing it in an outward form ; who 
toils on from week to week, sometimes condemning 
the labors of weary days and beginning over again ; 
who, when he sees the end, is still dissatisfied, 
until he has weighed and corrected every stroke. 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

Who is he that gains a campaign and ends a war ? 
It is the patient and long-suffering general, who is 
firm in his wise purpose, not hurried on by ap- 
plause, not moved from his track by censure, not 
disturbed by repulses, — who ploughs his long fur- 
rows onward to the edge of the field. And who 
is he that is best fitted to undertake and perform a 
work of love in this world of sorrow ? Not he who 
dashes onward, as if he were cheered by favoring 
crowds, but he who has a nurse's patience, bearing 
long with difficulties, with misunderstandings, with 
opposition, who works, perhaps, in all equanimity 
alone, until at last others feel the power of his sub- 
lime constancy to whom he can leave his half- 
finished plans as the trustees for mankind. 
' Now it is possible that all the classes of heroic 
men may persist in their work from a sentiment 
of duty and a noble independence of soul without 
much strength of religious principle and faith. 
And yet they would in hours of trial be greatly 
encouraged, and at some crisis be kept from aban- 
doning their plans, if consciousness of God's ap- 
proval, and faith in His help could throw them out 
of themselves upon Him. But the great problems of 
character — those achievements which are said to be 
greater than the taking of a city — can be regarded 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

as practicable only by him whose endurance is 
strengthened by the strength of Christ. The high- 
est thing a man can plan or purpose in this world is to 
live for God, and a higher thing still is to lead such 
a life. This work involves an amount of patience 
of which the mass of men have no conception. 
Oh, what a slow process it is, when subdued sins 
rise again, to have to meet them with the same 
arguments, w4th the same resistance, to see years 
pass away, and leave scarcely a sign of improve- 
ment in our characters, to oppose the prevailing 
tone of opinion and life around us, to keep the dim 
light of the promises in view amid the clouds, to 
row against the stream in a lifelong effort, until the 
sinews give way in death. Oh, is not this heroic ? 
Where can you find anything nobler than genuine 
Christian endurance. Ts not such a quality most 
like the unchanging purposes and the unwearied 
patience of God ? But who can put it forth, save 
he who has the strength of God with him ? Can the 
Pharisee enter on such work with success, or rather 
must he not cease to be a Pharisee, as soon as he 
becomes aware of the difficulty of being truly 
good ? " Even the youths shall faint and be weary, 
and the young men shall utterly fail ; but they that 
wait on the Lord shall renew their strength." 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

III. That which is practicable in the more im- 
portant work of life can be estimated and measured 
only by him who is strengthened by Christian faith. 
We have considered Christian principle in its power 
to counteract false judgments concerning the prac- 
ticable, and have also looked at it in its form of 
patience. In both these actings of Christ within 
the soul, faith is involved, and yet it is important, 
in the third place, to look at faith as a separate 
moving power. And here we wish to take into 
account not only the efficiency of the principle 
of faith, but also the real strength imparted 
through it from the real object, Christ. 

The power of what is called faith, regarded as 
a motive to action, without respect to the reality 
of the object, is now admitted on all hands, as 
well by the irreligious philosopher and the deep 
thinking poet or novelist, as by the Christian. A 
faith that shall take hold of something invisible, 
that can rise above laws and facts to eternal prin- 
ciples in the moral world, is felt by them to be 
essential to the nobler and more efficient char- 
acters. It is indeed to them of no significance 
whether the faith rests on any solid foundation 
or not, whether it sees an actual star or imagines 
one, it is still, by a law of character which is real 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

itself, a power of no mean force. Faith in God, 
they think, is about equally efficient whether 
there be a God or not ; the reahty has nothing 
to do with the working power of faith ; the inner 
life is just as well sustained by falsehood as by 
truth. Faith, in fact, is nothing else but a vigor- 
ous inner life projecting itself into something 
outside of itself, and drawing its real strength 
— all the while by a law of character — from 
an unreal, an imagined source. Hence the man 
of destin}^, they say, will, through the persuasion 
that he is called to do a special work, put forth 
the energies necessary for its execution, while he 
might fail, if, with equal ability, he were a matter- 
of-fact man, who judged according to probabilities 
within the reach of the understanding. The enthu- 
siast, too, though he be a mere dreamer, works 
wonders through the dreams which he takes for 
realities. The belief of the prophet in his own 
inspiration is his inspiration itself. A blind trust 
in providence will make a man submissive or 
courageous, although there be nothing but dead 
order in the universe. 

I accept what is thus affirmed of faith as con- 
cerning a certain strength in itself. It is a con- 
fession, even on the part of the most unbelieving 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

of men, both that a man must have some con- 
nection with a real or supposed invisible order 
of things, in order that he may reach true no- 
bility of character, and that this outward world 
does not and cannot, by its present realities and 
interest, supply fit food to the better powers of 
the soul. The confession reaches as far as this, 
that not only faith must be exercised to attain 
the great ends of life beyond the obvious earthly 
wants, but that there must be some object for it 
to take hold of, some source, real or imagined, 
for it from which it can draw its motive influence 
over life and character. The power of faith con- 
sists not in mere believing, but in linking the 
soul and the invisible order of things together, 
and in thus placing heart and conduct under 
their sway. Now if there are no such invisible 
things, if they are mere chimeras, if there is 
nothing but infinite death outside of man's little 
sphere, then falsehood is the only source of noble- 
ness, and as soon as the philosopher who specu- 
lates on the powers of faith finds out how empty 
the world is, he places himself beyond the range 
of these motives supplied by falsehood. He can- 
not exercise faith, nor on his own theory have any 
nobility of life, because he has reached the solid 
ground of truth. 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

But, passing by this, let us look a moment at 
some of the ways in which faith shows its effi- 
ciency. One way is the removal of anxiety, — 
that it lifts the soul above the agitating and weak- 
ening influences of fear. In the development 
of character the strength which opposes the be- 
littling influence of earthly apprehensions must 
come from hopes which have an invisible source, 
just as the motives which take off from the power 
of earthly hopes must be drawn from fears and 
convictions which have a spiritual origin. Cour- 
age to plan great things, courage to stand alone, 
courage to bear responsibilities, courage to venture 
on risks, courage to endure ill-success — this great 
quality of soul follows in the train of faith. Akin 
to this is the help it gives us toward forgetting 
ourselves and being absorbed in an object outside 
of us. Without a certain degree of self-forgetting 
we can accomphsh little that is either generous 
or good. If we measure ourselves continually we 
lose sight of the object outside of us from which 
strength may be drawn, and, as soon as this pole- 
star is hidden from our eyes, our direction and our 
energy are lost. This leads to the additional re- 
mark that faith inspires the soul with a joy, aris- 
ing at once from hopefulness and from this self- 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

forgetting activity, which is a great help to success. 
We overlook dangers which seem frightful as we 
look back on them, we undertake tasks that 
would be impossible, if a joyous hope did not 
lighten them. '^ Only believe," says our Lord ; 
" all things are possible to him that believeth." 

But it is important to add that the faith which 
is the measure of the practicable must be not faith 
in a higher order of things simply, but faith in 
God and in Christ. We have seen that among 
great men on a worldly pattern he can do' most 
who believes himself the creature of destiny, or 
the scourge of God, or the emissary to plant a 
new religion in the world by the force of arms. 
And so other selfish enterprises may be made 
easier and be despatched by a hope-inspiring con- 
fidence that is false at the bottom. But there are 
provinces into which this kind of faith cannot 
enter. The work of relieving human misery, the 
work of overcoming sin, the work of moral and 
religious improvement in general, the plainer and 
the more unselfish efforts to which we may feel 
ourselves called — these need a faith that takes 
hold of a real object. We enter by it into the 
plans of God, we are led by it to conceive of that 
as practicable in doing which we have a harmony 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

of soul with a God of righteousness and goodness. 
It is essential to the energy of the soul in all its 
higher work, that it believes not only in his will- 
ingness to help but in his approval. This is a 
point that presumptuous faith in destiny can never 
reach. This secures God on our side — not in- 
deed so as to make success certain, but so as to 
inspirit us all the while, until whatever aid and 
effort can reach us has been attained. And then 
comes the joy of having been faithful. 

But there is one vastly important department 
of action where we can be certain of great re- 
sults only through the strength of Christ. The 
gospel proposes to us the formation of a Chris- 
tian character as the great work of our lives, but 
it tells us at the same time — what we soon dis- 
cover from our inward experience — that our na- 
tive strength for such a task is crippled by sin, 
and thus if it contained no offer of help from 
above it would only distress and weaken us by re^ 
vealing the extent of our duties and of our weak- 
ness. The obstacles in the way when we are 
invited to such a life, the amount of toil to be 
endured, the patience demanded would soon lead 
us into despair, if our faith could not take hold 
of Christ at every step of our progress. Here 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

then there is a part of our field of action where 
it is not enough to believe^ but there must come 
actual help from a heavenly source. We are 
conscious of our inadequacy even to conceive 
of truth in its reality, and when through faith 
we can accomplish anything, we invariably as- 
cribe our success to some superadded power. To 
the man of faith nothing is so practicable 'as just 
this Hfe after the plan of the gospel. Thousands 
like ourselves have succeeded by this simple pro- 
cess. Thousands like ourselves, on the other 
hand, who have striven to be virtuous in the 
spirit of stoical or Pharisaical self-reliance, have 
either had before their minds a most defective 
idea of virtue, or have laid aside their work in 
discouragement as their standard of perfection 
grew higher, or, it may be, have in a fit of de- 
spair given themselves over to sensuality and 
worldliness, because their undertaking proved to 
be far beyond their strength. Here then is the 
dividing line between those who succeed and 
those who fail in the highest enterprise of man. 
" Who is he that overcometh the world, but he 
that belie veth that Jesus Christ is the Son of 
God?" But if I can do this — if I can over- 
come the world — I can do and endure all things. 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

If I can build up my character by faith, I can 
make the accomplishment of great good in the 
world practicable. I can find out what I am 
fitted for, I can feel myself equal to great things, 
while the small things of. life will neither inter- 
rupt the greater nor be neglected. 

And if these thoughts touching the strength 
afforded by Christ to character needed any fur- 
ther support, might they not find it in instances 
not very uncommon, where religion, entering the 
soul, seems to awaken both mind and heart from 
a brutish sleep, and to give new practical power 
to one who was conscious only of imbecility ? All 
looked down upon him as beyond the reach of any 
appeal higher than the senses, and so inert he 
was that he read himself only in their judgments. 
And so he lived in a kind of animal contentment 
until the gospel came to him as a revelation both 
of the nobleness of man and of his own degrada- 
tion, and as an offer of help and energy from the 
God who fiUeth all in all. He receives it as the 
buried plant receives the vernal rains, and he 
discovers who he is ; he feels new impulses from 
truth, new power of achievement, a new will, a 
capacity to act not only for himself but beyond 
himself, not only in the world but above the 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

world. He is transformed, not merely as all are 
whom the Spirit of God animates, but to such 
a degree that he is a wonder to himself and to 
all. But it is from Christ strengthening him that 
the power comes, and if he could lose sight of 
Christ, he would relapse into liis old brutishness. 
Do you say, now, that this is only an instance 
of a strong motive coming into the soul you can- 
not tell how, and that other great occasions can 
do the same ? Very likely. We do not pretend 
that the action of Christian principles on char- 
acter is peculiar or unnatural. But what we say 
and what such examples confirm is that these 
principles are positive strength ; they awaken not 
zeal only, nor resolute purpose, but a new con- 
sciousness of power and intellectual force ; and 
this they do by connecting the soul with Christ 
and with the spiritual world. "What acts on such 
natures is the same in kind with the less notice- 
able impulse in all souls that receive the gospel 
heartily. They now understand themselves bet- 
ter, at the same time that they receive a new 
motive power from Christ, and it may be that 
no other influence could have roused them from 
their torpor of soul, while this has brought about 
a change both entire and perpetual. 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

1. We see from this exposition of the strength 
supplied by Christ, what a noble conception Chris- 
tianity contains of the relation between the vis- 
ible and the invisible worlds. 

It is possible for a heathen sage, like Plato, 
to have a lofty standard of character, and to 
teach that it is the best of all attainments to 
become as much like God as possible. But in 
his endeavors to bring his principles to bear on 
practical life, he is met by a thousand difficulties. 
His own attempts at self-improvement are un- 
satisfying, if he is a man of the nobler type ; 
how then shall the mass of men without edu- 
cation or reflection, or established principles, be 
exalted into the likeness of God ? The only hope 
must be drawn from the institutions of society ; 
but if any dreamer imagined that a select order 
of philosophic governors could found and main- 
tain such institutions in their purity, and keep 
themselves pure also, he was not likely to trans- 
mit his hopes through many lines of successors, 
or to have them reduced to practice. Now what 
was the weakness of their system ? It was that 
deficient as the standard was at its best, the 
means of improvement for the character were 
yet more deficient. There was no divine truth 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

on which men could rely, and no divine assist- 
ance even so much as hoped for. Every seeker 
after wisdom must seek it in the way of phil- 
osophic system, and as for character, — that must 
grow by the resolute will and unaided efforts 
of each individual soul. Truth and motive and 
help were wanting. 

Christianity came bringing truth from the in- 
visible world into these regions of the senses 
and of time. And certainly it was a glorious 
thing for man to become sure that time is not 
cut off from eternity, nor earth from heaven, to 
have time enlarged into eternity, space into God's 
empire, and to hear the voice of God drowning 
all human voices by its loudness. Now there 
is something to live for ; man will not need any 
longer to despise his condition in this world, and, 
like an imprisoned thing, to search on every side 
of his cage for some opening into the outer air. 

But if Christianity had done no more than only 
reveal the nature of God and the standard of 
action, would it have been any blessing to man- 
kind ? How could it be a blessing if it aroused 
only a sense of guilt and a longing for deliverance, 
without supplying help and hope ? It is the prom- 
ises of the gospel, then, that crown its glorious 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

structure — the promise of pardon, of holiness, 
and of a strengthening Spirit. The prime glory 
of the gospel is that by this strength it secures 
the perfection of character, and enables the man 
to do all things which the august law of right- 
eousness demands ; — in short, that it brings God 
down into the soul, to make it by His presence 
a fit temple for His praise. 

2. It is plain, also, we add as a second reflec- 
tion, that our subject condemns the practical char- 
acter, as it is usually estimated in this world. 
The glory of man is practice, and the glory of the 
gospel is that it qualifies for practice. The practi- 
cal man who truly deserves the name, has the 
advantage over the theoretical man, who lives 
for truth and not for action, because his end 
of being is a higher one ; and the advantage 
over the visionary man, because he does not judge 
either of means or of ends under the deceitful 
influences of hope and imagination. The prac- 
tical man, after a worldly pattern, adapts his 
means nicely and shrewdly to his ends, but his 
ends are all visible, worldly ones ; he has no 
theory of morals and of life which has not been 
ground down by the current probabilities of the 
world, by maxims of expediency and prudence. 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

He judges wisely concerning what is attainable 
within the reach of his eye, but draws no in- 
spiration from a great, invisible future. He is 
shrewd in his management of men ; — he gov- 
erns senates, synods, banks, but of imagination, 
of the nobler sort of hope, he is destitute. He 
has no conception of an unseen world which 
runs by the side of this, and every now and 
then, by a silent movement, alters the course 
of worldly affairs. He dislikes theory. Theo- 
ries of human progress according to a plan of 
God ; theories of a kingdom of God which is 
destined to swallow up and appropriate all the 
forces of this world ; theories of the improve- 
ment of human character by the discipline of 
life under a Divine Spirit — all this to him is 
a land of cloud and * fog. His realities all lie 
on the earth, within the bounds of life, with- 
in the grasp, as it were, of his hand. 

Now such a man can do great things within 
a narrow sphere ; he will be the most sagacious, 
cautious, successful of men ; he will incur few 
risks ; he will not strive after the unattainable. 
But at the end of his successful life, what has 
he accomplished for himself or for mankind ? 
And he needs for his low successes no especial 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

trust or strength from above, if lie is shrewd 
enough not to viohxte the laws by which the 
world is governed. He has no need to bring 
faith or God into liis calculations. Instead of 
saying, " I can do all things through Jesus Christ 
wliich strengtheneth me," he draws his strength 
from himself, and that strength is dexterously 
spent on this present world. Now, if the pres- 
ent world is all, he is worthy of imitation ; 
" go thou and do likewise." But if we are 
made for eternity, learn his shrewdness, his pow- 
er of adapting means to ends, his concentration 
of purpose, his reliance, bu* fill a sphere far 
apart from his ; lead a life according to the full 
measure of your powers with a Idndred energj^. 

3. Finally, whatever we may accomplish in 
this world, that is of real value, we can take 
small credit for it to ourselves, because we have 
attained to success by the help of causes lying 
outside of ourselves — a favoring providence and, 
the strength of God. 

Only he can on any good grounds feel exul- 
tation who is indebted neither to man nor to 
God for his attainments. But where is there 
such a person ? The day laborer is nearest to 
this state of perfect independence, and yet the 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

hoe and the rake which extend his arms, and 
the spade which utilizes the moving power of 
his foot, are the inventions of distant ages. For 
the preparation of their material, for the per- 
fection of their form, hundreds of men have 
thought their best thoughts and done their best 
work. The same is true of all discoveries of 
principles and their reduction to practice ; we 
make our labor profitable by means of the labors 
of others ; their failures save us from failures, 
their successes are our inheritance. How small 
is the service rendered by any one man to 
the race, in any field of art or science, com- 
pared with the services contributed to him by 
past generations ! 

And in accordance with the same law of suc- 
cessive helpfulness, he who has refined his char- 
acter or blessed the world by his work, must 
say, " Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy 
name give the glory." For the thoughts which 
have disciplined him for his toil are the imper- 
ishable thoughts of former sages and philan- 
thropists. The examples that animated him were 
set by the wise and good of all ages. The 
drama of the world has been played for him. 
Martyrs have bled for him. More than all, he 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

would have remained at the best a wise world- 
ling but for divine grace which came home to- 
him in his sins, and rendered him a man of 
faith, self-denial, and execution ; which raised 
his standard of character, gave him courage and 
patience, and helped him to great things through 
a busy life. 

And so the man who has turned out in old 
age a disciplined, purified and truly wise man, 
who, under God's training of him, and by the 
strength of faith has felt himself equal to things 
which, when he was immature, seemed quite 
out of his reach, such a man will say, " I can 
do all things through " — and only through — 
*' Christ which strengthened me." As he looks 
back on the growth of his character, rising si- 
lently up, like the coral islands, out of the sea 
of sin, he discerns a divine foundation laid for 
him and in him. His native endowments were 
not his own. His efforts and self-discipline were 
aided from on high. His mind and heart fed 
on fruits which divine bounty had placed within 
his reach. Grace crowns the whole — grace, the 
pity and love of which he could not -perceive, 
as we can not see the atmosphere, but which, 
as he now looks back, he sees to have been 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

the main cause tliat made him will and do ac- 
cording to God's good pleasure. If that grace 
had left him, as if his own piloting were enough, 
what a wreck would he have made of himself 
at any point in the course of life I But grace 
would not let him go ; it stood by him to the 
end. By its help he has conquered sin ; he has 
foimd all things practicable to which he has 
been called ; he has become ripe for heaven. 

My Friends : It is a direct inference from 
the considerations brought before you in this dis- 
course, that a person will best know what he can 
do in the world, when he has come into harmony 
with the divine plan and can feel that God is 
his friend and counsellor. Then, too, he is in 
his best condition to go through with his life- 
work until the end. Then, too, he can judge 
best of counsels in which he is called to take a 
part. That is practical and that is practicable 
which commends itself to a sound, self-sacrificing 
soul, united in its affections and in the spirit of 
loyalty to Christ. It was an inconceivably vast 
plan which he undertook to redeem the world, 
he began it without apparent resources against 
fierce opposition, he persisted in it to his last 



STRENGTH TO DO ALL THINGS. 

breath, he left it to his disciples as their work. 
Think what has been effected, and place the 
resources and strength of the gospel in the world 
now by the side of that despised man with his 
handful of followers. If he has succeeded can 
anything fail that he approves, can anything 
succeed in the end which he does not favor ? 

I exhort you to ally yourselves through life 
to those who have drawn strength for little du- 
ties and for great duties from Christ. Do not 
feel as if his strength is not needed until some 
great crisis comes to which -your powers are un- 
equal, but draw upon it daily in the smaller 
difficulties of life, in the daily trials of char- 
acter, in the preparations for greater things. 
Remember that character is strength, and the 
strength of character is derived from those hab- 
its of faith, patience and uprightness, which are 
formed in the school of the great Master. To 
have been all along strengthened by Christ in 
the moral gymnastics of constant duty and trial 
— that is preparation for greater occasions, that 
is assurance of victory in trials. If you can, 
as you go on in the path of life, feel ready for 
whatever may come, if you are not afraid of 
emergencies — and that not by reason of any na- 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

tive courage or stoic superiority to events, but 
by reason of a faith that grows with the growth 
of danger — then you will be ready for every 
event, and the reality of help on which faith 
fastens will not be far from you. I wish you 
success in life, but may it be success obtained 
by victory, not by circumstances, and may the 
victory be the victory of faith. Farewell. 



Serving our Generation. 



"For David, after he had served his own generation by the 
will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw 
corruption." — Acts xiii. 36. 

These words may be translated, as they are in 
the text of our version, "David, having served his 
own generation according to the will of God," or, 
" David, having in his own generation served the 
will of God," which is the rendering added in the 
margin by our translators. The sense is substan- 
tially the same whichsoever of the two construc- 
tions we adopt. I shall follow that which stands 
in our text, and which informs us that David served 
his generation, that such service was in accord- 
ance with the will of God, and that then by the 
same divine constitution, he fell asleep, was gathered 
to his fathers, and saw or experienced corruption. 

Every man who lives as he ought is a servant 
and every man was intended to be a servant. In 
the family the father and mother are the servants 
of the children ; in the State, the magistrate is the 
people's servant, his relation to the people being, 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

in this respect the same, whether they choose him 
or whether the power in the State falls to him by 
hereditary right ; in the Church, the pastor and 
teacher is the servant of the congregation, for 
which reason he is called a minister. The apostles 
did not disdain this title. " Let a man so account 
of us as of the ministers of Christ," says Paul; 
and again, "we preach not ourselves, but Jesus 
Christ the Lord, and ourselves your servants for 
Jesus' sake." Even Christ himself, who had a 
right to Lordship and the service of others, says 
that '^ The Son of Man came not to be ministered 
unto but to minister, and to give His life a ransom 
for many." 

Thus, no dignity, no height of station, no grasp 
of mind, takes a man out of this necessity of 
serving others, if he would fulfil the end for which 
he was made. Dignity is not measured, after the 
Christian standard, by the right of demanding the 
services of others, but by the number of those 
whom you can reach through your services. A 
man who can serve nobody is the lowest of human 
beings, except him who can do service to his fellow 
men and will not : he is lower than the lowest. 
Then, as the capacity to serve rises, or more 
exactly, as the number of persons whom, by posi- 



SERVING OUR GEXERATIOX. 

tion, power of mind and goodwill, a man can serv^e, 
becomes greater, so the service rises in degree, 
until we reach Christ, whose greatness consists in 
being the servant of the human race through all 
lands and ages. 

Service is any contribiUion made to the real good 
of mankmd; biU it ca?zjiot be acceptable or praise- 
worthy zmless petformed with a definite intention of 
beiftg usefnl. We have, then, two elements in that 
service which conforms to a Christian standard : 
first, a man must be occupied in doing something 
which promotes the wellbeing of men ; and second- 
ly, he must do this according to the will of God, — 
that is, the servdce must not be accidental, nor 
owing to our position only, nor the indirect result 
of our selfish aims, nor merely the fruit of a kind, 
benevolent temper ; but there mzcst be a distinct 
refereiice to the will of God as it respects the kind 
and amount of service in which we engage. So 
important is this purity of motive, this goodness of 
spirit directing and guiding our usefulness in life, 
that the ill-timed, abortive efforts of a Christian to 
do good, if his judgments are not misdirected by 
some moral obliquity of his own, are accepted as 
service rendered to God, even if they cannot be 
called service rendered to man. While on the 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

other hand, the good wrought among men by one 
who has had the ulterior aim of benefitting himself, 
is not regarded as being good by God, however it 
may be estimated by men, and such service meets 
with no reward from the great Judge. 

The text invites us first to contemplate serving 
our fellow men under the more specific and definite 
form of serving our generation. It is pleasant to 
come down from high-sounding talk about progress 
and the destiny of the human race, to such tangible 
and homely statements as this. There is a class 
of minds which are kindled by wide prospects of 
good, stretching over the world or over future ages, 
and yet feel no impulse to engage in the active 
service of the men among whom they live. Some 
great deed of benevolence, some great advance of 
human interests, some forward movement of man- 
kind, — such things captivate their imagination, 
while they have no leisure or inclination for the 
steady service of the men of their own age and life- 
time. At one time these wide views take the shape 
of philanthropy, at another of progress or the spread 
of civilization, and may in both cases be utterly barren 
and unchristian. Now, Christianity affords a field 
for such attractive generalizations in the great idea 
of the kingdom of God or of heaven, but it knows 



SERVING OUR GENERATION. 

well that such grand conceptions cannot realize 
themselves without the successive additions made 
through long years by a multitude of men ; even as 
a stately building cannot build itself, but must rise 
by successive stories and by the hands of many work- 
men. And in order to bring down the great process 
of building up the kingdom of God within the 
reach of every laborer, of every mother, of every 
teacher, of every one, whatever be his or her 
sphere, it presents the work to us as an attempt to 
subserve the welfare of our generation according to 
the will of God. 

The good we can each of us accomplish in this 
world is small. The good that all men in all ages 
could accomplish, if they would, is vast, — so vast as 
to realize the conception of the kingdom of God on 
earth. But this good can be accomplished only by 
combination, and through a succession of laborers. 
Hence, if one link in the great chain gives way, if 
one generation in the great succession proves faith- 
less to its trust, the business of the next must more 
or less be to undo or to repair, instead of building 
up or carrying forward. If each generation serves 
the next as it ought, that is, if it contributes its 
quota to the sum of human good, real progress in a 
Christian sense is made — the kingdom of God is 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

carried forward. But in order that this may be' 
done, each working being, each individual source 
of power or influence, must serve his own genera- 
tion, and do his part to render the next generation 
more efficient, to make the progress of the world 
faster and surer. 

Thus it appears that all human improvement 
depends on the service which each generation 
renders to those that follow, and that this service 
depends on that which each person renders to his 
own generation. This being premised, we proceed 
to remark that in order to serve our generation, we 
must have, each of tis, a defi^iite field of doing 
good, the results of which can be reached, or 
at least are of probable attainment, within the 
limits of the age in which we live. Our ac- 
tion upon mankind must be indirect through 
our generation, and not direct ; it must generally 
be limited and local, and not universal. There are 
a few persons, it is admitted, to whom it is given 
within their age or shortly afterwards to affect great 
changes among mankind. Such are the originators 
of useful arts and inventions, great reformers, and 
sometimes great revolutionists. But the mass of 
men, with the highest desires to do good, have a 
sphere beyond which they cannot pass, which is 



SERVING OUR GKNERATION. 

perhaps contracted, but in which they can act to the 
utmost advantage, and spend their energies suc- 
cessfully, if only they have the right will. Let 
us look at these two limits of the service we can 
perform within our generation by themselves. 

First, then, sttch service must, in order to be truly 
such, to be efficient and practical, be cJiieJiy confined 
to htfluences and action tipon oitr own generation. 

Here the obvious thought strikes us that every 
age of mankind differs from every other. It has its 
own sins, wants and ignorances, its own abuses to 
be corrected, its own capabilities of improvement, 
its own dangers of decline, its own ways of thinking 
and feeling, its own capacities of acting and of 
being acted upon. This difference between genera- 
tion and generation is a necessary characteristic of 
the race of man, and the same difference affects the 
parts of the world within the same period. The 
individual is in many respects unlike himself as he 
passes through various stages and circumstances of 
life ; but the race differs from itself, as time passes 
on, still more widely. And those differences, the 
peculiar character and wants of our times, must 
condition our modes of serving our generation. An 
angel, if he could come within the sphere of flesh, 
and could work as a man upon men, while still 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

retaining his original powers, would need to subject 
himself to all the limitations of a particular age and 
a particular country, would need to identify himself 
in thought with those among whom he lived, as far 
as possible, would not need to be an abstract man or 
act on an abstract theory of doing good, but to 
become a man of his times, would find out how his 
age felt, and would feel likewise, and how it thought.- 
and would think likewise — would need, in short, to 
be in sympathy with particular men and a par- 
ticular age, in order to be in sympathy with man- 
kind at all. Nay more, how did the Son of God 
himself act .? He was born a Jew ; '' He was sent," 
as He says, "to the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel ; " He submitted himself to all the local and 
temporary rites of His country ; He rebuked its 
especial sins ; He warned against its immediate 
dangers ; He entered, moreover, into the closest 
sympathy with Galilee and with Jerusalem ; He 
had friends and a home which bound him more 
intimately to a particular spot and to certain per- 
sons than any other. And this He did with con- 
summate wisdom. Although mankind in general 
— the human race through all the generations of 
time — was before His eyes, as the great whole 
which He came to save, yet He sought to plant salva- 



SERVING OUR GENERATION. 

tion in one place, knowing that it would spread, 
under the laws of the kingdom of God, to all 
places, and to benefit one time, knowing that all 
times, all ages, would gather up in turn and 
increase the good He thus began. 

Again, we must in general have a specific sphere 
of goody within which our services to our generation 
lie, and outside of which, if we are able to act at 
all, our action must be occasional, and such as not 
to interfere with our especial vocation. This is 
what Paul means when he says, " Having therefore 
gifts differing according to the grace given to us, 
whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the 
measure of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our 
ministering, or he that teacheth on teaching." And 
again, "As God hath distributed to every man, as 
the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk ; " 
" Let every man abide in the same calling where- 
in he was called." There is such a thing as 
wasting ourselves from having too large a sphere 
and from going outside of our own sphere into that 
of another man. If we set ourselves up as inspec- 
tors-general of all about us, seeing how others do 
their work, and censuring them when they fail, we 
neglect our own. and we burden our shoulders with 
more than they can bear. Or if this be done, not 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

from a love of influence or a desire of being busy, 
but from pure zeal for good, we lose much of our 
labor, we do badly both what is our own part and 
what is not. Neither impulse nor accident can 
determine what our appropriate sphere is ; but in 
general, only the correct judgment of a Christian 
mind, acting at once in view of its capacities, its 
opportunities, and the openings of divine provi- 
dence, can decide the question. 

Again, service to otir generation must be chiefly 
local, as well as confined to a specific range of 
employments. -This, indeed, is obvious when we 
consider that our power of acting where we are 
known and on those we know, and the necessity 
for the most part of having some home, must 
determine our activities ; that we are not travelling 
agents of benevolent zeal, but persons living on a 
certain spot, bound to certain others with a wider or 
narrower acquaintance, all of us capable of only a 
certain amount of well-doing. The mother serves 
her generation within the family, within the town, 
known only to a few beyond these narrow limits. 
The teacher serves his generation among his stu- 
dents, and may be the best of instructors, although 
known only to those whom he has trained or has 
now under his training. The minister confines his 



SERVING OUR GENERATION. 

services in his generation to a few square miles of 
space, and, if there he acts his part well, it matters 
little that he is never seen elsewhere, is never heard 
on platforms, never appears in print, never " strives 
or cries or lets his voice be heard in the street." 
If our little candle sheds its beams around us, our 
households, our schools or colleges, our parishes 
will be light. If, on the other hand, we stray away 
from the spot where we are husbandmen, to plant 
a seed or two here and a seed or two there, in 
places where we know not the qualities of the soil, 
and cannot watch the plant that has sprung up, 
most probably we shall lose our labors abroad and 
abridge them at home. 

But lest I should be misunderstood, and should 
furnish false excuses to those who fail to do good 
when they have opportunity, it is necessary to add 
that although our services are chiefly confined to 
some particular offices in life, and to some par- 
ticular spot, we are not rigidly shut up within these 
narrow limits. Our spheres are not as distinctly 
defined as those of the workman in a manufactory ; 
and moreover, thei'e is a large department of life, the 
general work of doing good, which is reserved for 
no one in pa'tticular, and in which all must work who 
can. He, then, who will serve his generation 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

according to the will of God, must not say that 
such work no more belongs to him than to others, 
but must feel that his part is to be done whether 
others do theirs or not ; nay more, that the neglect 
of others may require of him that he be the more 
laborious and self-denying. This department of 
doing good includes all humane, friendly, moral, 
political. Christian effort, which will be an unculti- 
vated field, a desolate waste, if individuals cannot 
feel themselves called on to occupy and reclaim it. 
The mother must find her sphere in maternal 
duties ; there chiefly she serves her generation, 
and no one else can take her place, in order that 
she may make excursions to regulate and benefit 
society. But she is not usually so engrossed by 
her own calling that she cannot find time to visit 
the sick, the disconsolate, the poor ; to brighten 
society by kindly offices of friendship ; to help where- 
ever she can be helpful. And, if these occasional 
services are performed as they ought to be, so far are 
they from interfering with the ordinary routine of 
duties that they rather relieve their monotony, and 
make their importance more apparent. So, too, the 
teacher has his appropriate office of teaching, which 
he cannot neglect without sin for any private studies 
or external cares. If at his post he serves not his 



SERVING OUR GENERATION. 

generation, woe is unto him, he commits an act of 
infidelity to his trust and a crime against the 
minds and souls of his pupils. But he is not so 
wholly absorbed, it may be, by his work, that the 
instruction of a wider public and a multitude of 
acts of love tow^ards his fellow men do not fall 
within his province. And these cares are so far 
from being inconsistent with his main work that 
they may throw life into his instructions, and help 
him to escape from the spirit of routine and drill 
into the spirit of loving instruction. So again the 
minister has it for his main work to wait on his 
ministering. No one can take his responsibilities 
from him, and woe to him if he discharges them 
without fidelity and earnestness. But there are 
higher interests of the kingdom of God, wider 
wants of mankind beyond his parish, which he can 
subserve, which help him to throw new zeal into 
his usual ministrations, and bring him back more 
contentedly into his daily pursuits. Thus the du- 
ties of our special spheres, and the occasional ser- 
vices to our generation outside of those spheres 
are by no means incompatible with one another ; 
they are both necessary, and without both the 
world could make no progress. 

But our text goes on to say that David served 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

his generation by the will of God. Here the lead- 
ing thoughts suggested are that the will of God has 
established the relations of the individual to his gen- 
eration, and that we act in conformity with the Di- 
vine will when we serve the men of our time. 

The race of men abides while the individual 
dies. The race is ignorant and sinful but is to be 
made wise and good by human means. Even the 
Gospel began with the second man, the Lord from 
heaven, and is spread by men, who act for Him. 
The race again can be carried forward but a little 
way by any one individual, for there is a time 
when he reaches his maturity, his thoughts are 
fixed, he becomes incapable of taking novel as- 
pects of humanity as newer men might, he be- 
comes obsolete, if I may so express it, and other, 
younger men are needed to take his place and to 
carry on the torch of human enlightenment. Even 
if there were no mortality of the single man, this 
would be necessary, for the mind stops growing af- 
ter a certain period, runs in old moulds, and is less 
fitted for new exigencies of the human family. 
New^ ideas and new projects come not generally 
from the wisdom of old men, but from the original- 
ity of new men, stimulated, it may be, by the old. 

Such being some of the relations of the Individ- 



SERVING OUR GENERATION. 

ual to the race and to the men of his time, it is 
manifestly the will of God, as indicated by these 
facts, that the man should throw himself not into a 
remote work for which he may be unfit, but into the 
scenes around him, serving his fellow men while he 
has experience to understand their wants and fore- 
sight of immediate evils, and while he has strength, 
energy and hopefulness for such labor. But he 
vttist do this becatLse it is the will of God. In this 
way only service to man is connected with service 
to God, benevolence and godliness are bound together. 
We must choose our professions and callings in life 
with the most scrupulous inquiry what God would 
have us to do. We are not put in this world to 
enjoy life but to serve God in serving men. In fact 
we taste of true enjoyment only when we look away 
from the question of our own enjoyment. When 
in accordance with the will of God we adopt a pro- 
fession or calling, we must take it as God's place 
for us where in all fidelity we can serve his will. 
Nor must we overlook the numberless ministries to 
our fellow men outside of our callings which it is 
the will of God that we should discharge. 

And so we are to live, until in accordance with 
the will of God expressed in his providence, we end 
our work and prepare to fall asleep. That will 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

summons us to end our work, each in his ttirn, call- 
ing MS out of the world away from our work indi- 
vidually as it bade us e7iter it. And here we see 
a constitution or an ordinance of God wisely de- 
signed to carry the race forward and to make it 
one. If generations rose and fell together, if men^ 
like plants, had an eqital length of life and disap- 
peared at once, there could be no mankind. What 
we call the human race would be broken into sep- 
arate joints or links, between which, as they suc- 
ceeded one another, there could be almost no 
communication, and almost no transmission of 
knowledge or art. Each generation would begin 
nearly where its predecessors began, and would 
end almost where they left off. Or if again, 
'}nen should appear individually in the world, hit 
should all attain to the same age of decay and death, 
although in that case progress and all kinds of 
improvement would be possible, yet the assur- 
ance of life would destroy much of that feeling 
of dependence on the will of God which at pres- 
ent binds us to our Creator and Disposer. But 
now, when those who are born together die at 
very different times, and those who die together 
differ widely in the length of their lives, the best 
constitution of things seems to be secured. The 



SERVING OUR GENERATION. 

man of ninety survives as a witness to the past, 
and the man of thirty lives by his side, gathering 
up the fruits of his experience, but uniting to them 
the additions which later years have made to the 
common stock. The old, the middle aged, the 
young live together and die indiscriminately. 
Thus, when the race is considered, there are prop- 
erly no generations. The race has a steady out- 
ward flow. The individual calls those who live 
with him his generation, his contemporaries, but it 
is because his life is limited, and his end is soon to 
come. 

When that end comes ^ if a man has served his 
generation according to the will of God, he falls 
asleep. A beautiful expression to dwell upon, for, 
f7'st, it implies a resting from the work and weari- 
ness of life. How often amid grave responsibili- 
ties life is a burden, and the overcharged man 
longs, as the laborer, for his time of rest. This 
feeling increases as the bodily powers decay, and 
were centuries added to the sum of life with our 
present powers and burdens, how slow the end 
would seem to come. But now, the wearied man, 
when he feels himself unequal to the old burdens 
and is beginning to be aware of his decay, needs 
to wait but a little while before his release shall 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

appear. It is a release, if he has served God in 
serving his generation, like a gentle slumber, the 
day's work is over, he lies down and in a moment 
the weary body, the worn out mind are in repose. 

It is a sleep again because there is before him an 
assurance of a blessed waking. The infant need 
not slumber more securely than he, for he has cast 
off all his care and puts his hope in God. He 
knows in whom he has believed and is persuaded 
that he is able to keep that which is committed to 
him against that day. He believes, that Jesus 
died and rose again, and that even so them also 
which sleep in Jesus, God will bring with him. 

But this end of his earthly service is denoted in 
our text by two other forms of speech. He is 
gathered to his fathers and he sees corruption. The 
former phrase derived its significance from the 
practice of burying in family vaults, where the 
children and remoter descendents were collected 
with the founders of the line. But as the phrase is 
sometimes used of those wlio have not been buried 
with their ancestors, it has been thought to assume 
a wider meaning of a great congregation of the 
dead, where families are reunited ; or in other 
words to point somewhat obscurely at a future life. 
In the text, however, coming as it does between the 



SERVING OUR GENERATION. 

phrases ' he fell asleep' and ' he saw corruption,' it 
can mean only simple burial. By this act of bur- 
ial, and more fully by the process of corruption, the 
separation from the world of service and from the 
generation where one has served is rendered com- 
plete. The worker ceases from his work, is placed 
out of sight, fades by degrees from the memory of 
the living, until he sinks into almost total obliv- 
ion. And so too the generation which he served 
passes away to be forgotten, or so nearly forgotten 
that by and by only the painstaking antiquary and 
historian can recover some few characteristics of it, 
and can point out some few men, generally bad 
men, who have figured in it. The rest are as 
though they never were. 

The value of life then consists not in being re- 
membered, but in serving one's generation accord- 
ing to the will of God. There is an uneasy desire 
of reputation in many minds, and in others of larger 
aspirations a desire to be known and recorded 
after all connection with the earth has ceased. 
But history is so crowded with names already, and 
so few in every generation are known even by 
name after a few centuries, that such longings are 
empty, not to say that the character formed under 
their influence is selfish, dependent on the opinion 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

of Others, and displea^feing to God. We must be 
soon forgotten, that is according to the will of God. 
It is not desirable that the individual should be re- 
membered long, and if known widely while he 
lives, the distinct knowledge of him ceases soon af- 
ter his death. What he has achieved, what he 
has done for his generation, passes into the general 
stock. This is never lost. No good that the 
humblest of us has wrought wholly dies. You are 
a teacher. If you have been faithful, some good 
has flowed from you into the mind and heart of 
your pupil, and perhaps he was aware of it at the 
time. But by and by other influences lend their 
aid to form his mind and character, and what you 
have done cannot be distinguished from newer 
forces which act on the youth and on the man. 
Perhaps you have thrown some seed into his mind 
which after long years bears fruit, and he ascribes 
the good to some one else. What then } If you 
have served God in serving him, God remembers it 
although he does not. There is one long unerring 
memory in the universe out of which nothing good 
ever fades. So of the author. He expects a wider 
and more lasting public. But at length his works 
are unread, because every man writes for his times, 
and succeeding times have a higher standard of 



SERVING OUR GENERATION. 

knowledge, or need to have the same truth looked 
at from another point of view. Even in religion it 
is so. How different the practical writings of the 
Puritan age from those which now inculcate the 
same doctrines and the same religious experience. 
But what of that, if they served their generation, 
if others by their aid attained to something truer 
and nobler, if the world has been helped on by in- 
fluences from their pens ? Is it not well to be siLper- 
seded, if we can train others into wiser and better 
men than ourselves } And if the world is making 
advances, this must be so. Or shall we turn to the 
minister f He served his generation in the noblest 
of all works. But he dies, others take his place, 
and engage the affections of the parish ; only a few 
old people remember the man of thirty and forty 
years ago. But what would the parish now have 
been without him } And how many of the young 
through their fathers and their mothers, have drawn 
from him the first impressions of their childhood 
that led them on to God. So it is with the reformer. 
In his hard and weary service, in the course of 
which public opinion has been crucifying him, he 
has served his generation according to the will of 
God. Perhaps he dies in discouragement and des- 
pondency, feeling that he has lived too soon. But 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

SO much of resistance to evil was necessary before 
eyes and hearts could be opened. His successors 
enter into his labors. He was remembered for a 
while to be hated. Now he begins to be blessed. 
But soon again he is forgotten because the reform 
is completed. His power has flowed into the life 
of the world. He has helped to remould society. 
Let us then, my friends, in a self-forgetting life, 
aim to be followers of Him who '* came not to be 
ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life 
as a ransom for many." As He was sent to the lost 
" sheep of the house of Israel," let each one of us 
feel that we are sent to do an immediate and di- 
rect work, through which alone whatever we do for 
mankind outside of our field is to be attended with 
wisdom, energy and success. And as He, in the 
comparatively small and humble sphere of His per- 
sonal ministry, kept mankind, — the other sheep 
that were not of that fold, the many for whom He 
gave His life as a ransom, — before His eye, let us 
feel, while acting each of us his subordinate part, 
the gushing of a wide benevolence which will make 
us do our best where and when we act. Thus 
shall we be getting ready to meet our divine Lover 
and Friend, who is highly exalted because He " emp- 
tied Himself and made Himself of no reputation." 



GoD's Guidance in Youth, 



" Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, thou art 
the guide of my youth ?" — Jeremiah iii. 4. 

The proper sense of these words, as the original 
and the connexion indicate, is a rebuke to unfaith- 
ful Judah for calling God her Father, and claiming 
Him as having been the guide of her youth, while 
yet she persisted in her sin. Yet our translation 
conveys a sense, at once so beautiful and so truly 
scriptural, that I shall not hesitate to build upon 
it the thoughts which I wish to lay before you at 
the present time. The guidance of God, what it 
is, our need of it from our youth onward. His 
willingness to be our guide, in what and to what 
extent we may look for His direction, — these are 
some of the subjects which such a text suggests. 
They seem to commend themselves to us as being 
appropriate and timely. Yoti are doubtless sobered 
by the thought that you are on the threshold of life 
together, and about to take your separate paths 
alone. You are catching glimpses of life as in a 
track through the woods. You see the distant 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

light through the branches, and know not where or 
when you will reach the open sky. /, for my part, 
am sobered by the feeling that in bidding farewell 
to you almost my last official act in this place will 
have been performed, that my main life work is 
nearly ended. Bear with me then, if with more 
than my usual authority, with more paternal feel- 
ing than has been my wont, I call on you to con- 
sider the importance of taking God for your guide 
through the employments of life. Will you not, 
each one, from this time cry unto God, My Father, 
be thou the guide of my youth ? 

This cry, if you can sincerely utter it, is an all- 
comprehensive one. Although, in its terms, it asks 
of God to be a guide through the days of inexpe- 
rienced and uncertain youth, it will in fact include 
his guardianship for the whole of life. No one 
ever uttered it who expected in middle life or in old 
age to need no counsel or help from God. As life 
reaches its meridian and begins to decline, the need 
which prompts the cry is none the less felt. The 
responsibilities of mature life, the decaying vigor 
of old age will prompt it as much as when in 
youth 

" The world is all before us, where to choose 
Our place of rest and Providence our guide." 



GOD^S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

And, moreover, the sense of security under the di- 
vine wing will be so full of joy and restfulness, that 
the soul which has known this peace in youth will 
not roam abroad in quest of something more satis- 
fying afterwards. 

But the earnestness of the cry lies in the words 
" will thou wot from this time." There is an imme- 
diate need. The guidance is wanted now at the be- 
ginning of the journey, both because a mistake 
now may send its harmful influence through the 
whole of life, and because the feeling of loneliness 
as well as of uncertainty prompt's the appeal. 
There may be critical moments, turning points, 
hereafter, more grave, less full of hope, than this 
starting from the barriers upon the untried race ; 
but there never can be a time concentrating more 
interest than this — a transition from companionship 
to separate paths, from gaiety of heart to anxiety, 
from dependence on others to self-sustaining exer- 
tions, from a little quiet harbor to the great sea of 
life. 

And at such a time the cry of the text addresses 
God as a Father. This of course implies vastly 
more than the title God or Lord could do. It im- 
plies a personal relation— that he is willing to take 
and take care of each of you as of a son, that as 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

such he will be, if you desire it, a veritable guide, 
that his Providence is no distant care, as of a crea- 
ture, but an intimate one as of a child, — and that 
whatever may rationally interest an earthly Father, 
— our temporal welfare, our character, our projects, 
our eternal life, — will have his deeper interest. No 
one can say my Father honestly, without a faith 
that brings the soul near to him and him near the 
s-oul, and that, at one bound, overleaps all the diffi- 
culties that surround the doctrine of providence. 
Let us all call him so, let those enquiries rest which 
meddlesome reason raises, but cannot solve. They 
are all solved, the moment God's fatherly character 
affects our souls, and they trouble us no more. 

Wilt thou not be the guide of my youth ? What 
is implied on our part if we can honestly use such 
language towards God? We intend that such guid- 
ance is a very great favor, and that we desire it as- 
a security frcmi great evil. We imply in it so much 
uncertainty and self-distrust that we dare not un- 
dertake any thing of importance alone. We be- 
lieve also that the encouragement which such 
guidance can afford may be a great aid towards 
success in life. Without knowing Jiow God will 
guide, or being sure that he is in every particular 
instance such a guide, we feel that a geiieral faith 



GOD a. GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

/;/ his protection, of itself, is a great incitement to 
patience, and hope, and that tJie protection itself is a 
great reality. 

But I fancy, as I speak of God's guidance as of 
a thing most desirable and most inspiriting, for 
us all, old and yOlmg, that I can hear some one ut- 
tering half aloud words like these ; " It is a good 
and precious thing to talk of God as a guide, and 
to weaker natures it may be an encouragement, but 
for the strong, self-reliance is the road to success. 
Let me be numbered with the bold-hearted ones 
who press forward in the full use of their energies, 
to sieze the prizes of the world. I will, by my 
God-given vigor, leave the timid halting in the 
rear ; they may think, if they please, of the helps 
on the way ; I have no leisure for that but only for 
the goal that I see in the distance. I know that I 
may fail, but I support myself by my enthusiasm, 
until the failure confronts me." 

My friend, has it never occurred to you that a 
principle of action like trust in God may be most 
efficient, without being every moment before the 
mind '^. The soldier does not think of his country 
in the hottest of the fight but of the work at hand ; 
he forgets all things else for the time, and yet the 
motive of love to country was never more powerful. 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

We do not go back to our feeiings of love to our 
families or of attachment to our friends every mo- 
ment, yet we love them none the less. So trust in 
God as our life-guide may be a strong and steady 
principle, although we may not think of it for hours 
or days. It is at its post to act-whenever occasion 
demands, it may need to make no suggestions and 
give no warnings for a long interval. How then 
can it interfere with earnestness of action or ob- 
struct success ? You are altogether right in mak- 
ing the most of what your own powers can accom- 
plish, but perfect independence, if there were no 
God and no divine plan, would be impossible and 
even absurd. Without instruments, without com- 
panionship, without the treasures of past labor and 
thought, how small would be the attainments of 
the bravest man. The most daring and hopeful 
soldier would be stripped of half his energy, if he 
could not rely on his officer or on the men of his 
company. Even so, if there is a God who is wil- 
ling to assist his creatures, who, not only by the 
general laws of his providence, but by his direct 
presence and spiritual sway over mind and soul, 
can be our guide, is it not something like madness 
to refuse his proffered hand, on the plea that it is 
unmanly to ask for assistance upon the pathway of 



GOD S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

life. They who take such a course will be likely to 
sink the deepest into despair, when they find them- 
selves utterly unequal to the problems and the cri- 
ses that suddenly call for new counsels. 

But on the other hand God's guidance can only 
be expected by those who rely on themselves to 
the measure of their powers. He is criminally 
weak, who folds his hands and expects God to en- 
due him with some special energy, who sits still 
and expects God to make the first move. He is 
strong and will renew his strength, who believes 
that with God's aid he can do more than his own 
unaided abilities can accomplish. There may, in- 
deed, be a few occasions in every man's life, when 
we are without counsel and know not whither to 
turn. At such times no action is possible and ac- 
tivity is out of the question, so that inaction is 
then no crime, and preparation for the unknown fu- 
ture is the only duty. The believing but self rely- 
ing man will wait in trust for the darknes to clear 
away, and his experience of the remarkable open- 
ings which seem to come directly from heaven will 
probably be an encouragement for the whole of his 
future life. 

But what are we authorized to expect from God, 
when we in all sincerity ask him to guide our lives ^ 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. , 

It is not implied that he will gratify our wishes of 
fulfil our expectations to the letter. In that case we 
should guide him and have him follow our counsels. 
Nor is it implied, if we desire Jiim for our guide in 
certain things, and refuse either to ask or to take his 
counsel in other respects, that he will consent to 
lead us at all. If we go astray in our self-will, we 
shall be left to ourselves, unless his compassionate 
counsel, as often happens, cures us through our 
mistakes, and turns them into mercies. Nor, again, 
will he so guide us that we can see his hand, or sepa- 
rate the threads of his direct agency from the 
thread of his general law. It will therefore be al- 
ways free for us to doubt whether he has interposed, 
whether the opening in the skies is due to a wind 
scattering the clouds, or to the touch of his finger. 
Faith believes, nay rather sees, that he is preserU 
in his world and present with believing hearts, but 
it can penetrate no farther. Nor yet — to mention 
but one limitation more — will he undertake to recon- 
cile our purposes, when they clash with one another : 
He will not so guide us, that if our faces are set in 
one direction he will show us our way thither, while 
he leads us in another. It may be praiseworthy 
for one of us to enter into business with the hope 
of getting riches ; but he will not help us if we 



GOD S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

want to be rich and to be learned at once, or to be 
distinQ,uished and to have a Hfe of quiet together ; 
and so, if we set our hearts on being good, he may 
be our best guide in disappointing our inferior 
schemes, because he sees that in our case goodness 
and earthly success cannot be reconciled. 

But apart from such limitations there is nothing, 
no situation of life in which he is really needed, no 
state of mind or soul which requires his help, no 
problem of thought fit for man to solve, no crisis 
of action where duty is thrown upon you, where 
you may not invoke and claim his guidance. He 
confines not his leadings to action and withholds 
them from opinion, nor to what is sphituaU refusing 
to show us our path in the secttlar work of life. 
The great is not his province to the neglect of the 
small, any more than — to borrow a thought from 
Plato — it is the masons part to lay the great stones 
of a wall and not fill up the chinks with little ones. 
To him nothing is great, nothing is small in itself, 
but his Divine plan, which uses small and great alike 
is great, and character which he works upon by the 
small things of life is to be made great, and so ev- 
ery thing in its place is of importance. 

Among those things which you may refer to 
God and for which especially you will ask counsel 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

of him, I mention several by themselves. One of 
these is the choice of a profession or calling. These 
are the names which we give to one especial life 
work, to those branches of labor which we declare 
ourselves to have embraced, or to which we regard 
ourselves to have been called or summoned. But 
whence does this call proceed, except from him who 
has endowed us with our gifts and has bestowed 
upon us our opportunities } The call can proceed 
from no other source. Society sometimes under- 
takes to come between the free choice of the indi- 
vidual and the pursuit of many of the vocations. 
It obstructs the way for persons of a certain rank 
or birth, or it even judges of the qualifications of 
men for the pursuits of life, and either opens or 
shuts the door according to such an estimate of 
fitness. But in our land every calling is open to 
every one, and it is easy to pass from one calling 
to another, if success do not attend our first efforts. 
So much the more need for every young man to 
ask himself what he can do best in the world, and 
how best he can serve God and his generation. 
And shall he ask himself without at the same time 
asking one who knows him better than he knows 
himself.? Shall he come to a point in his way, 
where a decision may involve a complete failure or 



GOD'S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

the largest success, and not take counsel of the or- 
acle which no prejudice can misguide, and no ig- 
norance can blind ? If he fails to say " Father be 
thou my guide in choosing my life work," on what 
other occasion can he ask, or expect to have that 
counsel imparted to him ? Or will he say that by 
a sober estimate of his powers and his chances he 
is led to one choice rather than another, — that his 
decision is so clear that he needs no counsel ? I 
reply, if he has asked for guidance, and done his 
best towards forming his decision, he needs to do 
no more. But if he has felt no desire for aid from 
heavenly wisdom, how can he look for it when he 
enters upon the dry and perplexing duties of his 
vocation ? What right will he have to appeal to 
the fatherly protection of God, when cares annoy 
and burdens weigh down his heart, if he chose it 
without being chosen himself for it ? Much of our 
ill success proceeds from ^ur original wrong choice 
of our profession, and many of our mistakes in 
choosing proceeds from the want of that sure eye, 
that unbiassed discernment v/hich God, in his un.- 
seen, undiscoverable way, can give us. 

On the other hand, let a young man start in his 
career with humble, child like petitions for guid- 
ance that he may make no mistake in regard to his 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

future calling, that he may not rashly intrude into 
a place which is not properly his, nor shrink in 
self-distrust from one which he can fill, nor be led 
astray by self indulgence or covetousness or ambi- 
tion into a field whence he can reap only self-dis- 
satisfaction and the self-reproach of having wasted 
his powers — let a young man, I say, sincerely put 
up this prayer, and the very temper which it im- 
plies will calm and balance his mind, so that neither 
excited desire, nor fear, nor exaggerated hope will 
influence his counsels. His spirit of itself will be 
a check on a wrong choice, inasmuch as the eye of 
his reason will be clear and dispassionate. But is 
this subjective state, this action upon himself all ? 
So the atheist must say, and so the deist, who wor- 
ships a distant and unknown God. And they must 
add that the noblest results for character and life 
have come from a vain dream, from a senseless 
faith in Providence, as a power that •' shapes our 
ends, rough hew them how we will." But we, who 
cannot refer such beneficent effects to falsehood, 
see in the very constitution of our nature, which 
craves for and runs after the help of God, a pledge 
that he is willing to be our guide, that he has a di- 
rect agency in moulding our counsels and our lives 
for the best ends, if we will only let him. 



GOD S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

In the next place we add that God will guide us, 
if we wish, into right opinion and persuasions iit re- 
gard to Diviiie incth. Every observing and reflect- 
ing man must have noticed that moral truth has no 
force of its own to penetrate into the heart and 
control the life, but is continually resisted by what- 
ever there is of evil in our nature. Pride instinct- 
ively opposes the humbling truths which bring men 
low ; self-conceit prompts to reject the deepest 
truths for falsehoods that are shallow ; we seek to 
escape a sense of sin by destroying the force of 
such doctrine as excites the feeling ; worldliness 
and impurity, unable to bear strict obligations, open 
the mind to objections against the authority which 
claims to be from God ; fear seeks to avoid what- 
ever arouses fear ; and so every emotion, every de- 
sire may be enlisted in the service of the reigning 
sin. When barriers like these are surpassed, a 
great good is gained for the soul ; it has become 
unbiassed, calm, trustful, open to all truth from all 
quarters. Having thus been brought into harmony 
with divine realities, many persons have little per- 
plexity or doubt afterwards. They can take God 
in his word as their guide, and the experience of 
the Gospel in their souls is continually adding its 
weight to former convictions. But it is often oth- 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

erwise with the thoughtful student, above all at the 
time when he passes out of the hands of instruc- 
tors whose opinions he has embraced, as he ought 
to do before his own judgment has become mature. 
Now, when his reason is ripe, he feels impelled to 
examine the foundations for himself Doubts dis- 
turb him and demand a solution. What shall he 
do ? Shall he feel that it is a sin to doubt ? But 
it is no sin, unless a sinful bias has brought on the 
doubt, and he finds no such bias, — on the contrary, 
it is his highest wish to reach firm ground, to have 
a faith on which his soul may lean for life and at 
death. It is true indeed that a perfect character 
and a perfect life would be accompanied by a satis- 
factory faith that the Gospel is not a cunningly de- 
vised fable, nay the faith would grow into an assur- 
ance. But an imperfect, struggling Christian, is 
met by temptation at the point where he is most 
easily assailed ; and for the disciplined mind, trained 
by logic and by processes of demonstration, whom 
neither sensual desire nor worldly advancement 
can easily lead astray, for him attacks on the re- 
ality of religion and on the authority of the divine 
word are the hardest to be repelled. Above all is 
this true at the present day. The literature, the sci- 
ence, the metaphvsics most admired and followed 



GOD S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

are thickly sown with doubt. The scriptures are 
robbed of their authority for many, who mourn for 
the lost Eden from which with aching hearts they 
have been expelled. Not only is inspiration given 
up, as a theory refuted by the peculiarities of the 
sacred word itself, but revelation, the last refuge, is 
abandoned. And thus we see all around us moral 
weaklings without trust and without hope, who look 
here and there for some new light, who put no con- 
fidence in the faith in which their forefathers lived 
and died, and yet have found no substitute for it 
anywhere under the broad heavens. 

Now at such times when minds, especially inex- 
perienced minds, stagger under the burden of doubt, 
and feel that heaven and earth are growing dark 
before their eyes, are they left to their poor logical 
faculties ? Must they work out their problems, 
which touch the most vital of their interests, alone .-* 
If there was a friend who had borne the same 
weight of perplexing thoughts, would not the 
knowledge that he has come out into the light be an 
encouragement ? But a greater encouragement is 
the sympathy of God. Do not believe, my young 
friends, that God offers himself as a guide in his 
providence, and a guide towards a holy life by his 
Spirit, and yet will leave the mind alone which so- 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

berly explores the dark places of truth in the hope 
of his aid. How he can aid it is useless to ask ; 
but that he can aid, who is tjnith itself and has sure 
access to minds and Jiearts, you must not doubt. 
He may move in all silence, he may act on the soul 
and so on the mind indirectly, he may cause — as 
often happens — external things to illustrate truth 
in some remarkable manner. But be assured of 
this — that if, in obedience and hope you wait on 
him, he will bring you to the sunlight at last. And 
then the rest, the peace of having passed through 
and left behind you the wilderness of doubt will be 
a lifelong enjoyment. 

I mention one other occasion when the cry, " My 
Father, be thou the guide of my youth," will be 
especially needed. Very many lives that are pros- 
perous have a story of this kind to tell : that once 
or twice their way was blocked up ; they knew not 
which way to turn ; willing to do everything manly 
for themselves they stood alone ; heaven and earth 
seemed to be aloof from them. At such times how 
feeble does the man seem to himself; he cannot 
create circumstances ; he cannot find the place fit 
for him to fill ; he waits and waits, until hope and 
courage are ready to go out. I can tell you of one 
such experience. It was not fear of poverty which 



GOD S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH, 

disturbed him, but apprehension lest he should do 
nothing in the world, lest no place should be found 
for him, and his life should run to waste. He was 
at an utter loss ; he stood like the Jewish king who 
said, " We have no might against this great com- 
pany that Cometh against us : neither know we 
what to do, but our eyes are upon thee." At an 
extremity like this God appeared, and with his 
finger pointed to him his way. He entered into 
the newly-opened path with so little of self-direc- 
tion, so little of prescience, that the guidance which 
he invoked in the spirit of this text seemed almost 
visible to the outward eye. God was indeed there 
and was leading him. And the conviction follow'ed 
him through a long life. Such guidance, where the 
road seemed to come to an utter end, was a more 
impressive, more enduring lesson for his faith than 
all the direct arguments for a providence. 

And if on such occasions we are allowed to hope 
that God will be our guide, we may look for Him to 
follow us through all the scenes of life. And what 
better guide could we have than God, as He is 
revealed to us in the scriptures .-* We want a guide 
who knows us, whether we be self-willed and over- 
confident, or despondent and over-sensitive, or 
worldly and aspiring. We want a guide who knows 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

our frame and pities us, is not vexed with our 
ignorance or mistakes, but is tender towards us and 
patient. We want a guide who values character, 
and knows how to train while he guides ; who 
guides for the purpose of training, sometimes into 
very hard paths, but very profitable for the soul. 
And this is a comforting thought, particularly for 
a youth entering into life where he must act and 
think for himself, that while he outgrows his 
position in the family, and becomes the equal of his 
father and mother, God takes the place of his 
earthly parents. He is now a separate personality, 
and probably removed in place from them. He 
toils on with industry and hope. Burdens of 
responsibility are laid upon him, which weigh on 
his spirit. He asks God to help him bear them, 
and feels them to be lighter. The temptations of 
business or politics crowd around him, but he asks 
God to help him keep his integrity, and is heard. 
Amid the crowd of the time-serving and corrupt, he 
follows the counsels of God, and is safe from the 
defilements of the world. Amid the vacillating 
and uncertain he knows what to think and how to 
act. You might imagine that his eye has become 
so clear and his step so sure, that he can now 
faresee all danger and choose his path alone, with- 



god's guidance in youth. 

out needing divine help. But the joy of acting in 
harmony with God's will, the instinct of depend- 
ence, the experience of failure, if ever he has in 
his self-will wandered from his guide, are his moni- 
tors now. He would not choose his own path if he 
could, any more than he would live for himself, if 
that were permitted to him. 

And so, if life is prolonged, he begins the last act 
of his life-drama as a truly wise man — a corrected, 
disciplined, refined man — one who is ready for that 
degree which he will soon receive from the hands 
of his great Teacher and Counsellor. Compare 
him, I will not say with the hoary sensualist, but 
with the old man who has spent his active powers 
in living for the world, and who now, when he has 
nothing to give to God save a poor fragment of life, 
has come under the sway of a Gospel which gladly 
receives all. What a different experience can he teU 
of, who has followed God's guidance from that of 
the old man put into the hospital, so to speak, in 
order to have his spiritual maladies cured and his 
character made ready for heaven. His memories 
tell of God's deliverances and upholdings, and 
therefore he is confident and tranquil as he looks 
towards his setting sun. He prays with confidence 
in the words of the Psalmist, " Now, also, when I 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

am old and gray-headed, forsake me not, O Lord, 
until I have shewed thy strength unto this genera- 
tion and thy power unto one that is to come." His 
testimony is that God's strength has been with him 
through a long life, and is now, when the powers of 
nature are failing, most manifest. His faith in God 
as a guide grows stronger^ whether it be experience 
or some instinct of a purified heart that gives the 
added strength. If the doctrine of Atheism were 
true, and there were no divine governor of the 
world, you would suppose that his life experience 
would contradict and undermine his faith, that his 
fond dream of having God for his guide would 
suffer shipwreck on the dreadful reality of things. 
But his convictions have grown strong amid those 
very difficulties which lead so many into practical 
Atheism. To deny that there is an ever acting, 
ever vigilant providence, would be for him to deny 
one of the oldest and most vigorous of his convic- 
tions ; one, the tenacity of which no personal trials, 
no events in the world, can shake. And so he 
believes in a divine guidance of mankind, as well as 
of his own life. If life has taught him that God 
has been his guide, assuredly larger interests are 
under the same guidance. He sees the faith of 
Christendom assailed and tottering, but this does 



GOD S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

not destroy his confidence. God is indeed slower 
than li^e had imagined, but whether fast or slow, 
His plan rolls on towards its accomplishment. He 
sees great disasters poured as viols of wrath on 
men, but as he traces the divine hand in his own 
afflictions, so also he sees that public sin cannot be 
checked without public judgments. Is he not, then, 
blest, if with such serenity and hope for the world 
and for himself, he can commit all human interests 
into the hands of his heavenly guide. 

I invite you, then, my young friends, to this faith 
in God's guidance, so encouraging, so assured of its 
own foundation in reality, so persistent and unde- 
caying. Some of you will without doubt die 
young, and it will be a severe test of your charac- 
ters that your proudest earthly hopes will prove 
vain. But if you accept what is ordered as the 
divine plan for you, you may descend into the 
grave with joy, glad that God has better work for 
you on high. Others, setting out with headstrong 
will and immense desires, will pursue their own 
way without regard to the divine will. Most happy 
will it be for them if even great disasters — the over- 
throw of their life-plan, the shipwreck of their 
hopes, shall bring them to distrust their own 
counsels, and to put themselves under the direc- 



HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

tion of the heavenly Counsellor. Others, again, 
whether walking v/ith God or without Him, will 
reach the boundaries of old age, the few survivors 
of the hundred who now listen to my voice. I 
conceive to myself these survivors — some ten or 
fifteen perhaps in all — assembling here fifty years 
after their graduation. They open the triennial at 
the class-list, which by its many stars now shows 
that God is not only a guide but a supreme dis- 
poser. The class history is reviewed in order. 
Just, yet generous, fully aware of the characters of 
the departed, yet kind to the memories of those 
who have fallen by the way, they pas.s from name 
to name. Here is one whose name moves across 
their lips, who lived in mute inglorious ease, stand- 
ing still in life, without aim or effort. And they 
pass him by, thinking, some of them, that if God 
had been accepted as his guide, even he might 
have been cured of his indolence, and have 
done something for mankind. Here another is 
mentioned, who has not only done nothing, but 
worse than nothing ; he gave himself up to self- 
indulgence, self-indulgence ripened into vic^, and 
his life was a wreck. Poor fellow ! these old men 
say, he was kind : he could never say No ! And 
they drop a tear over him, and go on. Here is 



GOD S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

another of whom little was expected ; but he used 
his powers to the best advantage ; he made people 
feel that he was upright ; he seemed to have, and 
he had, God with him. His useful, honorable 
course closed amid many lamentations, nor is he 
forgotten by his fellow men. Here is another who 
seemed to be a sincere Christian, but he fell into 
doubt so deep that it reached the foundations of 
his faith. He thought that he could find out 
everything for himself, and in the end he gave up 
Christ, he gave up God. We will not judge him, 
say these old men, but they know that with a little 
less self-conceit and a little more earnestness, he 
would have come out right. And here is a list of 
those bright ones who entered into their life-work 
with the high resolve and vigor of conquerors of 
men and of nature. Where are they, and what 
have they done ? Here one of them is named who 
fell into illness that shut him out from active life ; 
he chafed and complained of God ; he refused in 
his self-will to go into God's school. Another of 
them, m the same fortunes, saw God's hand in what 
had befallen him, bowed his head in submission, 
and passed down with such a serene light to the 
grave, that the event of almost a generation before 
is a precious, a hallowed memory, for these a^ed 



" HELPFUL THOUGHTS. 

survivors. Nor will cause of rejoicing fail to them 
as they review the career of others among the 
leaders of the class, who, either in the quiet of an 
even life or under the stroke of disappointmerit, saw 
God nigh them, and took His hand as their life 
companion. And then the list ends with those 
happy ones who from college life onward pursued a 
steady Christian course ; it was no false, quickly- 
dying fire, no crackling of thorns under a pot, that 
principle of theirs, but an undying flame, a breath 
from heaven ; they went on from strength to 
strength, until their guide, when the right time 
came, conducted them upwards. 

And these surviving representatives of the class 
themselves, whom we conceive to be thus passing 
judgment on the deceased ones, — what judgment 
will God pass on them, what judgment will they be 
obliged to pass on one another } Will they come 
to that fiftieth year from their graduation in such 
a spirit that they shall be able to say, " The Lord is 
my shepherd, I shall not want, — yea, though I walk 
through the valley of the shadow of death, I will 
fear no evil, for thou art with me } " May you all, 
dear friends, the shortlived and the longlived, follow 
God's counsels, and thus attain to true practical 
wisdom. My last testimony to you from this place 



GOD'S GUIDANCE IN YOUTH. 

and in this office shall be, that to follow God's 
guidance is to attain to true peace, and that what- 
ever faults cling to us through our lives are chiefly 
due to our self-will taking the government of our 
lives into its hands. And my last assurance shall 
be that as you increase in years, and look back on 
a length of way already traveled, it will be a joy to 
be conscious that you have endeavored, however 
feebly, to walk with God. I bid you an affectionate 
farewell. 



